Western U.S. Travel - General & Miscellaneous, United States - Travel Essays & Descriptions - General & Miscellaneous, Historical Biography - United States - Pioneers, Historical Figures - Women's Biography
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Overview
"When Amelia Hollenback died in 1969 at age ninety-two, two surviving great-nieces rescued from the Hollenback residence in Brooklyn, New York, a trunk filled with letters, diaries, journals, and memorabilia from the large Hollenback family. Included in this treasure trove was the story of the 1897 trip that is the subject of this book. The time capsule offered the letters and photographs of an extraordinary southwestern adventure undertaken by sisters Amelia and Josephine, two educated Victorians who had taken the grand tour but had rarely ventured west of the Hudson. They boarded a train for Flagstaff to experience what remained of the Wild West and to photograph what they believed to be a dying Native America." "To prepare for their adventure, the fulfillment of a dream long imagined, Amelia Hollenback researched at the Smithsonian Institution and was given guidance by Southwest proponent Charles F. Lummis. She yearned to see the greatest of America's natural wonders, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona Territory, and to visit Indian pueblos and ancient cliff dwellings in northwestern New Mexico Territory. Proper and privileged young eastern women of this era were rare in the Southwest in 1897, and fewer still were those who camped out of doors and carried heavy tripods, cameras, and fragile glassplate negatives to record their experiences. Amelia's photographs of Grand Canyon reveal an absolute isolation and magnificence that are difficult today to evoke. At Hopi, the sisters met the great photographers and anthropologists of the day, including Ben Wittick and Adam Clark Vroman, and Amelia became the first woman to photograph the Snake Dance, still open to outsiders. Further adventures unfolded at Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna pueblos - adventures to last a lifetime." The intrepid women travelers of the last century breaking through boundaries and bodices, have lately gained the reputation of explorers. One thinks of Gertrude Bell in Arabia, Freya SEditorials
Library Journal
In the summer of 1897, two well-bred and -educated East Coast sisters, Amelia and Josephine Hollenback, embark on a three-month journey to the then-relatively unknown American Southwest. Traveling unaccompanied by train from New York to Chicago and points west, they carried letters of reference to family friends along the way and relied on advice from the most prominent American Indian scholar of the time, Charles Lummis. The sisters visited the Grand Canyon; Hopiland; the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Lagnuna; as well as Flagstaff, AZ, and the Indian ruins in that area. After their travels, Amelia became so enamored of the West, that she built a home in Santa Fe and spent many years in northern New Mexico. Here, Cook provides the reader with ample annotations and notes to make the letters and black-and-white photographs come alive over 100 years later. Readers will be charmed by the enthusiasm, independence, and energy of these young women. This beautifully designed volume is recommended not only for general travel collections but also for those specializing in women's history and the history of the American Southwest.-Olga B. Wise, Hewlett Packard, Inc. Lib., Austin, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Book Details
Published
July 4, 2003
Publisher
Santa Fe : Museum of New Mexico Press, c2002.
Pages
1
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780890134030